Voices of the Enslaved, Part III

Online Free Lecture presented by Barbara Goyette, Hammond-Harwood House Director

The Christiana Riot of 1851 was one of the early events leading to the Civil War. William Parker, who escaped enslavement at Roedown plantation in Davidsonville, Maryland, by fleeing to Pennsylvania, played an important role. The armed resistance by free blacks against a group led by Federal agents took place at his home.

He tells his own story in the slave narrative published by The Atlantic Monthly Magazine (1866).

William Parker’s house, 1851